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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Learning Journal',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'PHIL 1402: Introduction to Philosophy',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="Unit1">
	<h2>Unit 1</h2>
	<p>
		Right off the bat, pragmatism itself was a huge surprise to me.
		It claims that what determines whether an idea is true or not is whether or not that idea is useful.
		Truth and usefulness are in no way the same thing; I find the idea of attempting to marry the two to be utter lunacy.
		It can often times be very useful to act based on utility instead of truth, but one should not confuse the two for being one and the same.
		Something being practical also doesn&apos;t make it right; morality and practicality shouldn&apos;t be confused as being the same thing either.
	</p>
	<p>
		I was also surprised to see Christianity mentioned as being positivist.
		The positivist ideal is to work together for the greater good.
		However, Christianity isn&apos;t that at all.
		In Christianity, everyone is supposed to work together to the ends of the will of one: Yahweh.
		Yahweh is the creator and supreme being (known to people that don&apos;t even know their own religion as well as they think they do as simply &quot;god&quot;), and those that don&apos;t follow his divine will are punished.
		Depending on which branch of Christianity you look at, what Yahweh deems bad can often be ridiculous.
		For example, most branches of Christianity frown upon queerness, despite not being a choice.
		Some branches claim being queer is okay as long as you remain celibate, but that obviously means cutting a huge part of who we are as humans out of our lives.
		A loving entity would never ask that of us.
		You also see a multitude of other cases in which Yahwey could either fix things (as he&apos;s supposedly omnipotent) or sit back and do nothing.
		However, he takes a middle ground throws mighty punishments at sinners, often times taking out innocents in the process.
		The great flood, the destruction of certain cities, and more.
		The punishments don&apos;t even always fit the crimes, and the &quot;crimes&quot; don&apos;t always make sense.
		One person was turned into a pillar of salt for simply looking behind themself instead fleeing without looking back as instructed.
		No, the reading material is wrong.
		Christianity isn&apos;t positivist.
		Christianity is Realist.
		Specifically, Christianity is based on the idea of archē, with Yahweh holding all the cards and pulling all the strings.
		Any that oppose this deity and his plans are punished, often in overkill ways.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit2">
	<h2>Unit 2</h2>
	<p>
		The most interesting thing I learned this week was the option to act based on not our own beliefs, but the beliefs with the chance to lead to a better outcome.
		Immanuel Kant had the idea that after ruling out the possibility of finding the truth, so we can act based on that, we should examine the opposing beliefs and act based on which belief is more likely to lead to something positive.
		In such cases, it doesn&apos;t matter what the truth is, because we can&apos;t know it.
		I&apos;d honestly never thought of things that way.
	</p>
	<p>
		I think last term drained me of what hope I had left for humanity.
		While not the intention of the course, <a href="/en/coursework/ENVS1301/" title="Introduction to Environmental Science">ENVS 1301</a> taught me why we humans are destroying our world, and why it&apos;s not likely in our nature to change.
		There are a few of us, of course, that do our part, but on the whole, I no longer think we as a species can be redeemed.
		There aren&apos;t enough people that care compared to those that don&apos;t, because the ability to care about the long-term consequences of our actions is an outlier.
		I won&apos;t go into details here, as I already did there.
		It applies on a bigger scale though.
		If it&apos;s not within human nature for us to care about the planet we need for our own thriving and survival and the thriving and survival of our offspring, why would it be in our nature to care about anything else that&apos;s actually important for the human race as a whole?
		We are selfish, greedy animals, just like any other animal species.
		It&apos;s been proven time and time again that humans don&apos;t care about their fellow humans.
		Caring for your close friends and family isn&apos;t what I&apos;m talking about, either.
		That&apos;s all just superficial.
		Caring for ten to twenty people you know personally while ignoring what&apos;s best for over seven billion people still makes you a monster, not a saint.
	</p>
	<p>
		According to what Kant has to teach us though, those of us that do care can still try to move forward.
		I mean, I have no way to know for sure if my efforts will be in vain or if the general populace can finally begin to care about the damage they do.
		As of late, my belief has been that we will continue to be horrible, but regardless of my belief, that&apos;s not the belief I should act on.
		Even if I believe all hope will come to nothing, I should act as though I don&apos;t believe that at all.
		After all, it&apos;s the only way to move forward, right?
		Maybe one day, pretending to hope will actually lead to a world in which real hope can take hold in me once more.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit3">
	<h2>Unit 3</h2>
	<h3>The problem of evil</h3>
	<p>
		There was always a simple solution to the problem of evil: if there is a god and they&apos;re perfectly good, they&apos;re either not omnipotent or not omniscient.
		I found this week that I kept making arguments in my paper only to have similar ideas soon roll in from the actual reading material.
		I tend to write as I read.
		I don&apos;t read the material fully before writing, as I&apos;ll forget some of what I had to say by the end.
		So what I do is I read until I have something to say, then I write that down, then I continue reading.
		Of particular note, I read about Plantinga&apos;s belief about what the limitations of Yahweh (the Christian god) actually are.
		They didn&apos;t really phase me at the time.
		A lot of it was just theist nonsense going over the top in explaining something that didn&apos;t need that much explanation.
		I mean, it makes sense to tell us that Yahweh cannot do the logically inconsistent.
		It pulls the idea of omnipotence back into the realm of possibility.
		But telling us Yahweh is incapable of lying, cheating, stealing, or committing evil?
		What&apos;s the point of adding these other stipulations?
		I had to go to work though, and couldn&apos;t finish reading the piece right away.
		Hours later, at my place of employment, it hit me: this version of Yahweh has no morally-significant free will, which Plantinga claimed was absolutely required in order for someone to be worthy of praise or admiration.
		Plantinga&apos;s belief leaves us with a god unworthy of warship!
		I got home, wrote about that, then continued reading.
		And found the same argument I&apos;d just made.
	</p>
	<p>
		It might take me some time (hours in this particular case), but I&apos;m great at finding the holes in arguments.
		I&apos;m not making any breakthroughs.
		I&apos;m not coming up with any ideas other atheist haven&apos;t made before me.
		However, what I&apos;m pointing out also isn&apos;t a stretch.
		My ideas are sound and grounded in reason.
		I&apos;m realising I make an excellent sceptic, and that&apos;s a confidence booster for me.
		The arguments this week also tend to centre on Christianity, and I&apos;m poking holes in every idea put before me.
		This makes me believe even stronger that Christianity isn&apos;t the right religion for me.
		I sometimes consider that there might be a god or gods.
		I mean, I have no proof one way or the other.
		But Christianity is so full of inconsistencies that I can&apos;t believe in the Christian religion.
		This week has helped me see even more of those inconsistencies that keep Christianity from being compatible with basic logic.
	</p>
	<p>
		It&apos;s funny, too.
		With small changes, Christianity could in fact be compatible with logic.
		That said, you&apos;ve either got to throw out the bible or the idea that Yahweh is supremely good, incapable of evil, due to how terribly he behaves in the bible.
		Even ignoring his actions in the bible, if he&apos;s incapable of evil, there&apos;s no justification for warshiping him, as he  has no choice but to be good.
		He needs to be capable of evil to be worthy of praise for his good.
		Throwing out the idea that Yahweh is incapable of evil and incapable of making mistakes, while a small change, sort of undermines the whole point of the religion though, doesn&apos;t it?
		It brings Yahweh closer to the Greek version of what a god is: basically a powerful being with a very human personality, flawed like the rest of us.
	</p>
	<h3>Furedi</h3>
	<p>
		Frank Furedi has some very backwards ideas.
		I started to see that when he started trying to claim that gayness isn&apos;t genetic, but something we choose.
		When I found out I was attracted to people of the same sex, I was <strong>*devastated*</strong>.
		I did <strong>*not*</strong> choose this!
		Anyone that claims queers choose to be queer is dead wrong and has no idea what they&apos;re talking about.
		But then he continued that people try to pass humans off as sophisticated animals.
		He was claiming that we&apos;re not animals!
		What are we then, plants?
		Fungi!?
		No, it&apos;s a scientifically-verifiable fact that human beings are 100% animal.
		In fact, we&apos;re a species of ape.
		When people think of apes, they usually think of gorillas and the like, but just look up <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae">great apes</a> on Wikipedia.
		Or look up <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human">humans</a>, for that matter.
		Anyone claiming that we&apos;re not animals, again, has no idea what they&apos;re talking about.
	</p>
	<p>
		Y&apos;know, the most infuriating part about this is that I&apos;m actually a strong believer of humanism.
		Furedi is using invalid arguments about humanism and in support of humanism, and that really makes me mad.
		While I&apos;m a humanist, I&apos;m also a determinist.
		I believe that our choices are decided based on the current circumstances and who we currently are, with who we are having been determined by a combination of our genetic make-up and our past experiences.
		We&apos;re still choosing everything we do.
		For example, when I find a same-sex partner, it&apos;ll be my choice to do so.
		But I don&apos;t choose my desires.
		I didn&apos;t choose to be gay.
		Even if I forced myself to settle on an opposite-sex partner, I&apos;d still be gay, I&apos;d just be denying myself the chance to be happy.
		While I don&apos;t choose to be gay, what I do choose, as a humanist, is to act on those desires.
		In other words, I choose to be happy.
		I&apos;m an animal; I have instincts, and I don&apos;t want to be lonely.
		I want a mate.
		That doesn&apos;t make me not a humanist, as I act on my instincts by choice, not reflex.
	</p>
	<p>
		Furedi also makes the point that these days, people loath humanity, while in the past, people didn&apos;t.
		Well, duh!
		In the past, we blamed the gods for our misfortune.
		The gods were terrible, not us, right?
		But these days, we understand that we&apos;re to blame.
		We understand we&apos;re messing everything up.
		We understand we&apos;re destroying our own habitat.
		We understand that humanity is the cause of just about everything terrible.
		Of <strong>*course*</strong> we have a lower opinion of ourselves now!
		The fact that Furedi doesn&apos;t even acknowledge this quite-obvious conclusion further makes me think he&apos;s a quack.
		If he wants to refute this conclusion, that&apos;s one thing, but he doesn&apos;t even present a single possible conclusion, refuting it or standing behind it.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit4">
	<h2>Unit 4</h2>
	<p>
		I found the realisation that culture tends to be passed down during mealtime to be enlightening.
		I guess this realisation isn&apos;t going to change who I am going forward, but it explains a great deal about how I came to be what I already am.
		I usually eat alone, and at the same time, I&apos;m a person that never got absorbed by popular culture.
		My feelings, opinions, and even moral values are drastically different than those of my parents, much to my mother&apos;s dismay.
		I guess that&apos;s all on her though.
		She <strong>*could*</strong> have indoctrinated her children into her culture if she&apos;d only taken the time to eat with us, but she didn&apos;t like to be at home.
		She wanted to avoid our father more than she wanted to spend time with us.
		I mean, we still saw her for several hours each day; it wasn&apos;t like she was never around.
		But she was always going on random trips just to be out of the house for a few hours, especially when our father was likely to be around, such as around dinner time.
		And now, all four of us, my three siblings and I, have developed minds of our own.
		We all reject her narrow-minded view on things in favour of views that look at the broader picture of humanity.
		Though she didn&apos;t mean to, she saved us from absorbing her backwards view of things.
	</p>
	<p>
		She wasn&apos;t the most supportive person either, and liked to tear us down.
		Due likely to the depression she caused, I always found some corner to eat in away from everyone during lunch at school.
		That&apos;s likely why I not only didn&apos;t get absorbed by her personal brand of culture and values, but also didn&apos;t get absorbed by popular culture.
	</p>
	<p>
		Thankfully, I no longer have to live with her, and my depression has predictably cleared up.
		I still eat alone out of convenience, as I live alone, but I guess I now think it worth making that a conscious decision.
		If I eventually find a man to love, I&apos;ll eat with him, but for the most part, I see no reason to go out of my way to eat in a group.
		Preserving my individuality and not becoming a sheep like one of the masses might be more tied to my habit of eating alone than I&apos;d previously realised.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit5">
	<h2>Unit 5</h2>
	<p>
		The part of this week&apos;s lesson that caught my attention the most was the instructions for the written assignment.
		They specifically mention female genital mutilation, but leave male genital mutilation unaddressed, despite male genital mutilation being a much more common practice these days.
		In fact, female genital mutilation has been outlawed, while male genital mutilation still runs rampant.
		It&apos;s quite sexist, to be honest.
		I&apos;ve noticed that this ethics course has had a decidedly Christian spin to it from the beginning, and I think that&apos;s one for the main reasons female genital mutilation was mentioned, instead of genital mutilation in general.
		The Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith are highly into mutating the genitals of their male offspring, so of course a Christian-oriented course is going to try separating out male versus female genital mutilation as if they&apos;re somehow not the same thing.
		It really pisses me off!
	</p>
	<p>
		One good thing did come of it though: it made choosing a topic for this week&apos;s essay easy.
		I took the third topic, the one about forcing adult beliefs on children, but instead of focussing on female genital mutilation as recommended, I focussed on male genital mutilation.
		We need to stop slicing and dicing your children&apos;s genitals, regardless of the their sex.
		If they want their genitals mauled, they&apos;re more than welcome to have the procedure done as an adult.
		I didn&apos;t look much into female circumcision this week, but I did find some interesting facts about male circumcision.
		For example, waiting until adulthood is actually <strong>*safer*</strong>, due to human immune system of adults being stronger than that of a child.
		Complications from male circumcision, including infection, claim more lives than $a[SIDS].
		Furthermore, the foreskin of an infant is fused to the glans, or head of the penis.
		Waiting until adulthood makes the procedure easier and less painful, as the foreskin doesn&apos;t need to be severed from the glans.
		All of this misses the point though, which is that people should be free to choose whether they want their bodies altered or not.
		Infants aren&apos;t given the choice, it&apos;s just done to them, and it&apos;s sickening.
	</p>
	<p>
		I guess all this changed my world view because while I&apos;ve always been against mutilating babies, I had to do some actual research to pull this essay off.
		I found there&apos;s no actual valid medical reason for the procedure, despite the lies fed to me by my mother.
		Of course, she believed them to be truths; they were fed to her by her parents, and so on.
		It traces back to an ancient fear of sexuality, just like female circumcision.
		It was nice to learn the facts.
		I also learned that sexual pleasure is permanently reduced by genital mutilation, which I suppose I shouldn&apos;t find too surprising.
		It turns out that thanks to my parents making this decision for me without my connect, they&apos;ve ensured I can never achieve the level of sexual pleasure I&apos;d otherwise be able to, and that saddens and angers me.
		They had no right to do that.
		My body isn&apos;t their to mutilate.
		Parents that love their children shouldn&apos;t be forcing their bodily ideals on them.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit6">
	<h2>Unit 6</h2>
	<p>
		I suppose the main lesson I took from this week was while writing the essay for the week.
		I don&apos;t think I made any huge breakthroughs on anything, but writing always helps me crystallise and refine my thoughts.
		I don&apos;t think the world has any meaning.
		People try to see meaning where it isn&apos;t.
		We&apos;re genetically inclined to do that, just like how we&apos;re genetically inclined to see faces, even where there aren&apos;t any.
	</p>
	<p>
		I came to a realisation about that this week.
		I think people believe in gods because of this futile search for meaning.
		We want to feel like they matter, even though we don&apos;t.
		We&apos;re small blips in time; we don&apos;t last long.
		By believing in gods and an afterlife, we can make ourselves feel like there&apos;s something more.
	</p>
	<p>
		The discussion this week helped me understand the Christian religion a bit too.
		People are rebellious.
		Especially as adolescents.
		One of the common themes between variants of Christianity seems to be that you&apos;re not supposed to question.
		You&apos;re just supposed to blindly believe and blindly follow.
		And if you don&apos;t, you&apos;ll suffer for eternity.
		The goal with that is to use fear to combat rebellious tendencies.
		It&apos;s not just in teens of course, though discussion of teens is what came up in the discussion.
		People won&apos;t sit back and take subjugation that they know isn&apos;t right unless you scare them into it.
		And modern religion - at least many forms of Christianity - try to do just that.
		It&apos;s pretty ingenious, really.
		I&apos;ve known for a long time that religion is a tool for controlling the masses, but I guess I hadn&apos;t looked all that deeply into why it works before.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit7">
	<h2>Unit 7</h2>
	<p>
		I think the most interesting part of the course this week was how many people in the discussion forums seemed to think that without a god, basic morality couldn&apos;t exist.
		Um.
		What?
		How does that work?
		Without a god, we can still try to help one another.
		On some level, most people do try to help one another, and I doubt they&apos;re thinking of a god when they do that.
		On the other hand, entire wars have been waged because of religion.
		Hate crimes are often caused by religious beliefs as well.
		For example, Christianity is a religion that opposes queers.
		Most Christians don&apos;t feel a deep-seated, boiling hatred when they learn someone they know is queer, and they don&apos;t commit hate crimes.
		I&apos;m not saying 100% of Christians become terrible people because of the word of their god.
		Still though, it shows that people will find a way to be terrible, even with a god.
		Likewise, as I said, people often try to be good even without one.
		Gods aren&apos;t needed for morality to exist.
		To believe otherwise is utter lunacy.
	</p>
	<p>
		I guess after this week, more than ever, I see how much of sheep the masses are.
		They think they need a deity to follow.
		They think that without one, they wouldn&apos;t be good people.
		But who knows them better than they know themselves?
		Maybe they&apos;re right.
		Maybe I just assume they&apos;d be good (or about as good as they already are, anyway) people without a god to follow because I try to be a good person even though I&apos;m an atheist.
		<strong>*Especially*</strong> because I&apos;m an atheist, I should say.
		I mean, every god I&apos;ve ever heard of is terrible.
		Were I religious, I&apos;d be conforming to terribleness.
		Maybe I&apos;m projecting though.
		Maybe most people actually do need a god or they won&apos;t even try to approximate goodness.
		Maybe other people are worse than I imagined.
		Maybe they&apos;d murder, rape, and steal without belief in a god to hold them back.
		Wow.
		That&apos;s just ... depressing.
		Basically, people either underestimate themselves, and they actually would try to be decent people even without a god, or they&apos;re actually terrible people on the inside, far worse than I&apos;d ever imagined, and it&apos;s only their fear of their god that keeps them acting semi-reasonable.
	</p>
	<p>
		After this week, I&apos;m not sure whether to fear people more than before or instead pity them.
		Either way, my perception of the public has diminished over the course of the unit.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit8">
	<h2>Unit 8</h2>
	<p>
		I found the study of Paulo Freire to be the most interesting this week.
		Unlike most people in society, he noticed that conforming to society&apos;s norms is often toxic.
		I don&apos;t think he recognised just how toxic society&apos;s norms often are, but he did see that many of these norms stifle creativity.
		Those of us that even suggest that society&apos;s norms are wrong are usually written off though.
		It was refreshing to hear that someone making this claims instead is taken seriously as a philosopher.
	</p>
	<p>
		Freire also made the observation that the education system cannot exist without pushing an agenda.
		This isn&apos;t to say that the agenda is necessarily bad, but it&apos;s an agenda none the less.
		That means we should be shaping our school systems to work toward a positive one.
		Today&apos;s school systems usually try to shape students into conformists, going along with whatever is presented them, no matter how toxic it is.
		This isn&apos;t a healthy goal for students or a healthy goal for society.
		I don&apos;t know about society in other countries, but in my own country, the United States, society is in most ways degrading.
		I&apos;d never thought of it before, but in many ways, the school systems may be to blame for this.
		I guess I should have seen it sooner though.
		I mean, my mother is a very toxic individual, but she&apos;s also an elementary school teacher.
		I&apos;ve never thought that a good career path for her, but I didn&apos;t look at the bigger picture: she&apos;s probably pretty typical as far as school teachers are concerned.
		There are thousands of her moulding the minds of this nation&apos;s young, and they&apos;re turning out horribly.
		Then again, the United States has ban pretty bad in many respects for quite a while.
		I can only hope that the education system in other countries is better.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m not saying it&apos;s specifically the teachers though.
		It&apos;s other educational staff as well.
		At least I haven&apos;t run into too many toxic professors at this school, though some of the administration here have pretty backwards ideas, such as that censorship is not only acceptable, but justified.
		It&apos;s not all the fault of school faculty either.
		It&apos;s whoever&apos;s hiring them.
		They look for specific qualities, and that&apos;s who we get moulding young minds.
		In the case of public schools, it&apos;s the government running things, so it&apos;s no wonder things are run the way they are.
		The United States government is undeniably a puppet of the corporations.
		Corporations thrive when people don&apos;t ask questions; when people let themselves get walked all over.
		Is it any wonder then that the schools are pumping out extreme conformists?
	</p>
</section>
END
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